Catholic Priests and the Perversions of Predators

A prisoner scored monetary settlements in four states in a fraud claiming sexual abuse by four Catholic priests. Why “rings true” is no standard of truth or justice.

It was not exactly what Pope Francis had in mind when he asked us to consider the smell of the sheep out on the peripheries of Church life, but he was not addressing the wolves among us when he said it. Jesus had another idea in Matthew 10:16: “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves.” It’s a very difficult balance to strike, but we have to live in this world as it is. The difficulty in distinguishing the wolves from the sheep was the premise behind my post, “Why the Catholic Abuse Narrative Needs a Fraud Task Force.”

When Shamont Lyle Sapp first detected the scent of sheep, he found it too enticing to pass up. Convicted for a series of bank robberies, Mr. Sapp, then age 51, was serving a lengthy sentence in the dark peripheries of the U.S. Penitentiary in Allenwood, Pennsylvania when the scent first drifted by his cell in 2008.

That was when Sapp filed a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon. Detailing his tragic past, Sapp’s lawsuit claimed that he was a stranded teenage runaway from his Pennsylvania home en route to stay with relatives in Oregon. Then Archdiocese of Portland priest, Father Thomas Laughlin took advantage of his plight to repeatedly sexually abuse him.

Sapp claimed in his highly detailed lawsuit that the priest offered the young runaway a job cutting grass, then sexually abused him at a Portland Catholic church. Then Father Laughlin sodomized him during a five-day motel stay paid for by the priest who then funded the youth’s return trip to Pennsylvania. It was the latest horror story in the Catholic abuse narrative, and one that dismayed Catholics coast to coast.

Mr. Sapp’s story rang true, so it flew. Further inquiry was deemed unnecessary. The detailed claims were reported to civil legal authorities for whom the story also rang true, but Father Tom Laughlin had already been accused and convicted by others with similar tales. Mr. Sapp’s disturbing story added to the weight of a growing millstone around the priest’s neck.

In all public documents in the case, Mr. Sapp found refuge among an ever-expanding list of “John Does” accusing priests from the Archdiocese of Portland to cash in on its bankruptcy proceedings. Sapp’s story was accepted at face value resulting in a cash settlement of $70,000. Inmate Sapp accepted the offer while lawyers, the Archdiocese, and victim advocates all pontificated about how no amount of money could compensate him for the trauma he endured. As for Father Laughlin, the “credible” (aka “settled”) accusations drove another nail into the coffin containing the remains of his priesthood as the Archdiocese sought his dismissal.

WHY ACCUSERS SHOULD BE NAMED

There was only problem with Shamont Lyle Sapp’s story: “It was entirely fabricated,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Peifer who in 2014 prosecuted Sapp for mail fraud and other federal charges for this and three similar frauds carried out against Catholic priests and dioceses in four jurisdictions. While serving another sentence in a medium security state prison in Minersville, PA, Mr. Sapp filed a second lawsuit claiming that a priest of the Diocese of Tucson, Arizona sexually abused him.

Later still, Sapp was serving a sentence in a South Carolina prison from where he sought compensation for claimed sexual abuse by another priest. And before all the above, Sapp filed a 2006 lawsuit claiming that a Spokane, Washington priest had sexually abused him in a similar account.

In all these other claims, Sapp picked from diocesan records the names of senior priests who had never before been accused, destroying not only their good names, but their vocations. Each was removed from ministry under the terms of the U.S. Bishops’ Dallas Charter. They became “Priests in Limbo,” as the National Catholic Register’s Joan Frawley Desmond described priests living, sometimes for years, under a cloud of shame and suspicion for events that could not be disproven after the passage of time.

Each claim against every one of these priests was presumed at face value to be credible and lumped into mediated settlement negotiations. Then the names of the priests and the details of the claims against them were submitted to the Holy See as “credible accusations.” In “Sacrificing Priests on the Altar of Insurance,” a 2015 article in Homiletic & Pastoral Review, authors David. Shaneyfelt and Joseph Maher address this:

“Most clergy cases, like most civil cases in general, settle short of trial. Settlement is a fact of life for many reasons, chief of which is that both sides, after getting a chance to inspect the strengths and weaknesses of each other’s cases, can make a calculated estimate about settlement at a certain dollar figure. And here is where insurance law squeezes the bishop – and may crush Fr. Bob.”

The problem is that for insurance coverage to defend the case or negotiate settlement, the accusation is against the priest but the financial claim is against his bishop and diocese. When, from my prison cell in 1994, I tried to block settlement of the fictitious claims of Thomas Grover and his brothers, I was quickly dropped as a defendant in the lawsuit so that I no longer had standing to object.

In each of his claims, Shamont Lyle Sapp simply did a little research on publicly available bankruptcy proceedings entered into by each of the four beleaguered dioceses he sued. He then attached his name and claims to each case – one by one over several years – aided and abetted by an assurance of anonymity as “John Doe” at every level in the settlement process.

He was also “John Doe” in the news media, and in the fired-up rhetoric of the activists of S.N.A.P., the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests who are ready to dismiss any hard questions as “revictimizing the victims.” I wrote of this injustice, and the naivete of the sheep when confronted by wolves, in Part II of a three-part series, “When Priests Are Falsely Accused: Why Accusers Should Be Named.”

It was ultimately his own greed that unfolded Mr. Sapp’s hand. In 2011, Sapp gained some notoriety when he filed a lawsuit seeking $1 million in damages against comedians Jamie Fox and Tyler Perry, falsely claiming that they stole from him an idea for a film project called “Skank Robbers.” Finally, someone took a hard look at Shamont Lyle Sapp, and it was his undoing.

On June 11, 2014 before U.S. District Court Judge Anna Brown in Portland, Oregon, Sapp entered a plea of guilty for his scam against Catholic dioceses. He was sentenced to familiar territory: 33 months in federal prison and ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $70,000 to the Archdiocese of Portland. At sentencing, U.S. Attorney Amanda Marshall added:

“Fraudulent claims in court… are a serious drain on public and private resources and deserve significant penalties. This is particularly true of fictitious sex abuse cases, which injure the falsely accused and hurt real abuse victims.”

WHERE’S THAT SPOTLIGHT TEAM?

I did not come across this story in The New York Times or The Boston Globe or in any of the media venues that have gained notoriety from exposing scandal in the Catholic Church, taking every claim at face value. Instead, this entire account was researched and written by Mark Wilson, an editor for Prison Legal News (“Prisoner Admits to Scheme to Defraud Catholic Church, Gets 33 More Months in Prison,” November 2015). Mark Wilson is to be commended for doing what the mainstream media has failed to do in the entire Catholic abuse narrative. He explored the hard questions when developing a story.

The account above is by no means unique. In “Prelude to the Year of Mercy,” Father George David Byers wrote briefly of claims against Father John Geoghan, labeled “worst abuser” by much of the media and the trigger for the 2002 emergence of the story of scandal and Catholic priests.

Father John Geoghan was murdered in prison at the hands of Joseph Druce, a deranged inmate who claimed he was protecting children by killing the priest. Ironically, some of Geoghan’s most notorious accusers spent time in the same prison in which the priest was later murdered.

Five years earlier, on April 7, 1998, Sean Murphy, age 35, and his mother, Sylvia, 57, sent a letter to the Archdiocese of Boston demanding $850,000 to avoid a lawsuit over claims that Father Geoghan had sexually abused both Sean and his younger brother. The claims were bolstered by ongoing rumors about Geoghan. To support the claims, Sean’s mother forged school records placing her and her sons in Saugus, Massachusetts, where Father Geoghan was assigned in the 1980s.

Within days of the Murphy claim, Byron Worth, 41, concocted a similar claim from his home in Ashburnham, MA, 100 miles away. His claim also alleged sexual abuse by Father Geoghan in the same community, thus corroborating the Murphy’s claim and $850,000 settlement demand.

JOHN DOE IN THE NEWS

It’s unclear what caused civil authorities in Massachusetts to investigate these claims, but the flood of accusations and lawyer-driven demands for settlement was just then building. State police somehow learned that Sean Murphy and Byron Worth were inmates together at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution in Shirley, MA, when they met and concocted their scam. Neither of them had ever lived in the same town where Father Geoghan was assigned. Sean and his mother, Sylvia, and Byron Worth were indicted on fraud and conspiracy charges.

Sylvia Murphy, likely dragged into this scam by her convict son, died before facing trial in the case. The younger Murphy brother was never charged. On November 16, 2001, just two months after 9/11, Sean and Byron entered guilty pleas, and were each sentenced to less than two years in prison. After serving that sentence, Sean Murphy was indicted and convicted again, this time for a fraud involving the sale of stolen Super Bowl memorabilia.

The Boston Globe and other local newspapers relegated the Murphy scam to the far back pages, never once mentioning that the priest being falsely accused in the scam was the notorious Father John Geoghan, lest others among his 130 accusers were called into question. When two other inmates at MCI-Shirley accused another Boston priest, a local lawyer wrote to me:

“It is no coincidence that these men share the same prison. They also share the same contingency lawyer. I have some contacts in the [Massachusetts] prison system having been a lawyer for some time, and it has been made known to me that this is a current and popular scam.”

On July 14, 2001, The Boston Globe carried a story quoting a local Boston contingency lawyer: “the hearsay and speculation” among lawyers and their clients is that “the Catholic Church settled their cases for an average of $500,000 each since the 1960s.” It was a dangled lure that would have many takers, and a Pulitzer Prize for The Boston Globe Spotlight Team that mined the results.

These are just the scams that had the rarest of outcomes. They were unmasked, and in each, “John Doe” was exposed as one of the wolves. In reality, no one really investigates any sexual abuse claimant named “John Doe,” certainly no one in the news media or on the left side of the political issue of victim rights. Not when the accused is a Catholic priest anyway. I often wondered why this is so, and found my answer in a segment of No Crueler Tyrannies by Dorothy Rabinowitz:

“In the late 1980s, as today, there was a school of advanced political opinion of the view that to take up for those falsely accused of sex abuse charges was to undermine the battle against child abuse; it was to betray children and all other victims of sexual predators. To succeed in reversing the convictions in such cases was to send a discouraging message to the victims and to encourage predators. Where advanced reasoning of this sort prevailed, the facts of a case were simply irrelevant.” (p. 18)

On January 25, 2003, The Boston Globe carried a report by Matt Carroll and Walter Robinson. It was about a Springfield, Massachusetts, couple arrested and charged with extortion for a blackmail operation against a Boston priest. At the time, I wrote to both reporters to inform them that I had first-hand knowledge that the man accused in that blackmail attempt had brought prior claims that were financially settled involving a priest of my diocese. Neither reporter ever responded. Today, they are two of the reporters featured in the film, “Spotlight.”

Thus, another type of predator is enabled, and left to roam among the sheep undetected. There are other such accounts – too many to recount here – but they all lend weight to the foreboding of Matthew 10:16: “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves.”

You will not read this story, or anything like it, anywhere in the mainstream news. It’s up to us to make it known. Please share this, post it, email it, and recommend it to others. Otherwise, the only story that’s left is the one told by the media heroes of the left for whom any question about the legitimacy of a claim of victimhood is, by its very existence, a sacrilege.

About Fr. Gordon J. MacRae

The late Cardinal Avery Dulles and The Rev. Richard John Neuhaus encouraged Father MacRae to write. Cardinal Dulles wrote in 2005: “Someday your story and that of your fellow sufferers will come to light and will be instrumental in a reform. Your writing, which is clear, eloquent, and spiritually sound will be a monument to your trials.” READ MORE

Comments

Your picture is misleading. It’s not little boys that are the majority that are being molested, it’s teen boys. Homosexual priests are the problem in the Church, They are the ones who are preying on teen boys.

Yes, Janelle, I too found the slider at the top to be a little shocking at first, but the more I thought of it, the better it fits this post. It is satirical and it portrays perfectly how SNAP and the news media have portrayed this story and continue to do so. I hope you will find time to read the whole post, and the one that comes before it. I do remember a striking quote from Father Gordon MacRae in another post in which he wrote: “It is a tribute to the power of reaction formation when an entire institutition would prefer the term ‘pedophile scandal’ to ‘homosexual scandal’ even when the facts say otherwise.” That is very true, and I’m glad you once again raise this important point.

I am loathe to use the words, but the comments by Ryan MacDonald and Charlene both “ring true.” The news media of the left loves to go on about the Catholic Church sex abuse cover-up while at the same time hiding a cover-up of their own. The National Catholic Reporter had only one reason to take down Charlene’s comment. It does not suit their agenda. And as Ryan pointed out, insurance fraud is the oldest scam going. In your diocese, for example, Msgr. Edward Arsenault (according to his own published pre-prison resume) personally negotiated 250 settlements while wearing two hats: representing both the diocese and the National Catholic Risk Retention Group as Chairman of its Board of Directors. According to a recent Concord Monitor article, 200 claimants were represented by one lawyer, Peter Hutchins. So who investigated these claims? It seems no one did. In a 2004 article Mr. Hutchins observed that officials of the diocese did not even ask basic questions like “Who, what, and where?” All they asked is “How much?” “I’ve never seen anything like it!” said the lawyer. But the most egregious part of the cover-up is the one alluded to by Father Byers: That U.S. bishops continue to let Vatican officials believe that these claims are investigated, that they are credible, and that the priest is expendable.

I HAD 4 POSTS BLOCKED, IN THE PAST 2 MONTHS BY FB!
I simply Posted a “Status”–Subject: “The INJUSTICE OF THE “SOCIAL JUSTICE AWARDS”! And, Posts with links to Fr. G.’s Case. FB said it was “Hate Speech”!!
I WAS BLOCKED FROM POSTING ON THE USCCB SITE, FOR 2 YEARS!! Because I dared to question their Versions of “Social Justice”!
(Well, I May have suggested our “Bishops” take off their CEO Hats, & pick up their Staffs, Then, those with a TRUE Vocation, Could lead us to Christ, & the Rest could get a Real Job!) 🙁
GREAT NEWS!! I JUST GOT “BLOCKED” AGAIN!!
Fr. G.’s “Story” won’t get out YET, because the evil one is on a rampage!! He, (satan) is attacking every single person I know, who’s trying to live their lives around Christ Crucified…And it’s Not a Pretty Picture!
Thank G-D, Our Father, for Protecting Fr. G. & his Vocation, however He Chooses to!! He has the LARGEST PARISH in the Country!! Jesus & Mary have Protected Fr. G.’s Priesthood, & they WILL Continue to be his Personal “Bodyguards”!
Where else can we go to see & hear, the WORD OF GOD, spoken in its full TRUTH! And, put in touch with OTHERS doing the Same?
Fr. David G. is Another Priest, Tried by Fire, & Rescued by Jesus & Mary! I can just see MARY, Throwing her Mantle of Protection over Fr. D., & turning to Jesus with a Smile, she asks HIM, “Like that, Yeshua?”
(When Pope Francis made him 1 of only 800, “Missionaries of Mercy” Priests! Assuring that, NO Bishop or Prelate Could Stifle or Silence him)
Jesus has placed the Preparation for His Final Victory in His Mother’s
hands. NO HUMAN Loves G-D’s Priests, More than Mary!!

Kathleen, you are in good company. Yesterday the National Catholic Reporter took down my comment because I was critical of the attitudes and tactics of some SNAP members. Many of them posted hateful comments on mine, but then NCR left theirs up and took mine down! Some people just don’t want to hear the truth.

Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you [falsely] because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.h Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

EVERY TIME I SEE THIS, I THINK OF YOU. KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK, FATHER GORDON. YOU ARE ROCKING OUR WORLD…AND…IT NEEDS TO BE ROCKED.

AMEN TO ALL!!
I didn’t mean to imply that God” put Fr. G. in Prison….I only meant, that this GROSS Miscarriage of Justice, from the Clerics And The Courts, was Allowed to happen, for a purpose known only to God. Everytime I think & pray for Fr.G., et all, I get a “picture” of Christ standing in front of Pilate,
answering his question about Power–“YOU have NO Power Over Me, were it not Given to you from above! (My Father)…even now, if I asked…..”
But, Jesus DIDN’T ‘Ask’…..God Bless you all!!
Am having trouble getting time to get to my Computer now…But you’re ALL in our Prayers, & our offerings, to Jesus, through Mary! (Because Mary will clean up the self pity, anger, & all the rest, to make the offerings more acceptable! Especially mine!)

This site has been a real education for me. Some of your writing is shocking, but this story is outrageous. A big part of my outrage is that I have seen this story no where else. I do not doubt your facts for you have documented these details, superbly. So why is this not a major story in the news? Why has the Catholic press not carried this? Why aren’t they all publishing links to These Stone Walls? Their heads seem to be buried in the sand.

As a survivor of sexual abuse, I can tell you that the prosecutor you have quoted here is correct. Victims of abuse are further harmed by false accusations. The fact that SNAP and Bishop-accountability are not shouting this story from their roof tops tells me that the cause of survivors and the truth of accusations are not their real priority. I agree that we need to send links to this to the secular and Catholic press, and to post them on line and on social media. We need to insist that this story be heard. From where I sit, Father MacRae, yours is not the best Catholic Social Justice site. It is the ONLY Catholic Social Justice site.

I had forgotten about this, Marie, that this story is reported no where else. I have often thought that Father Gordon’s blog should have a wider readership. Unfortunately, no matter how many of us repost his writing or talk about it to our friends in the real world, the people who SHOULD be hearing what he has to say, have no exposure to it.

My husband tried to contact Michael Voris a year ago. With his wide audience and the topics he choses to expose on his Wednesday evening investigations, one would think Father Gordon’s story and what he writes about would be a perfect fit for what Michael does. We never heard back from him. Perhaps it’s time to contact him again.

Our brilliant American bishops by tolerating the perverts first, and later passing that infamous Dallas Charter, have turned the Church into an ATM for crooks and lawyers (but I repeat myself.) In Boston, the church of St Joseph’s was sold to make money to cover these expenses, a building built with the money of Irish and Italian poor faithful immigrants was sold like any other piece of real estate. AND NOW if I want to teach Catechism in any parish in the US I will have to provide my police record even when I am not a bishop or a priest who for the most part committed these crimes. To pour salt on the wound, good priests like Fr Gordon MacRae are falsely accused and then thoroughly abandoned by said bishops. Let me be the teacher for once Your Excellencies: HELL EXISTS.

There is one scandal here on earth, upon which the media and the self-righteous focus.
There is quite another scandal that Heaven views far differently.

We pray for our condemned priests, as well as the often more difficult task of praying for those who accuse them.

For the condemned priests who pray for those who accuse them the task is infinitely more difficult task and yet, it is this incarceration martyrdom that likely is saving countless souls, many of whom will not know until after death that those who they treated so vilely were instrumental in saving them from eternal punishment.

Scratch an unjustly accused priest who has accepted his cross and you will find a beautiful embodiment of the triumph of those who pursue the guidance of the Beatitudes.

Father Gordon, it is a challenge to sufficiently thank someone who is living out a life that is such a gift of charity to so many.

God bless you richly and may the love that the angels allowed Jesus to feel while he endured His Passion also be available to console you. You are loved by so many and perhaps one of your greatest gifts is to supply us issues that enrage us, while also bringing us the supernatural truth to quiet and transform that rage into something splendidly peaceful. From the belly of the beast you deliver us into an oasis. Incredible.

I supply this from St. Gregory of Nyssa, a mystic who lived in Cappadocia in Asia Minor around 380 AD. He described the Beatitudes this way:

“Beatitude is a possession of all things held to be good,
from which nothing is absent that a good desire may want.
Perhaps the meaning of beatitude may become clearer to us
if it is compared with its opposite.
Now the opposite of beatitude is misery.
Misery means being afflicted unwillingly with painful sufferings.”

Appropriately, I end with something far more beautiful than I’ll ever imagine and write:

THE EIGHT BEATITUDES OF JESUS
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they who mourn,
for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure of heart,
for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they shall be called children of God.
Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Gospel of St. Matthew 5:3-10

Many sorrows have been borne by the innocent and I am as upset as anyone over all the false claims and the unwillingness of authorities to debunk them. However, we must not lose sight of the “very few” actual cases of child abuse by priests that resulted in so many good priests being scorned, imprisoned, or stripped of their vocation. In Portland, OR one of the priests mentioned in this story was, well, I must say it, Guilty! What a hideous blow not just for the victims, but for the entire diocese. We all suffered collective reparations, though completely innocent. And it was because of these “very few” guilty ones, that so many others have suffered at the hands of the “also guilty” – fraudulent claims, greedy attorneys, the hubris of SNAP! There will be accounting for it some day. Scripture says that what human beings do in the shadows will be shouted from the rooftops. I pray for that day to come, and for you and all the other falsely accused to be exonerated.

All of this corruption of INNOCENT PRIESTS being led to the slaughter by the ones that are supposed to PROTECT them, is HORRIBLE. These CHANCERY RATS – quote from Fr. George Byers – makes me want to leave the Catholic church because of such CORRUPTION.

But then GOD intervenes with my thoughts and says, “You are very content with your parish and priests, so DON’T CONDEMN the church!”

The chancery rats will GET THEIR JUST REWARD for all ETERNITY by GOD, OUR HEAVENLY FATHER.

Dear Carol–Stay Strong-Hold Fast to your Faith–There were MANY ERAS of Scandalous, Immoral, Corrupt behaviors, in the RC Church, from the beginning. Remember our 1st Pope, Peter, Denied Christ 3 times!
Further, as Peter was leaving Rome, (during a Persecution), he saw Jesus, walking Towards Rome! Peter asked “Why”? Jesus replied, to be Crucified again”….Peter, our 1st Pope, then turned around, & went back. Promptly arrested, he begged, & it was granted, to be Crucified upside down!
The evil that has run amuck in our Church’s History, is to me, & many others, Empirical Evidence of the Protection promised by Christ. (He Had to Know What was Going to Happen when Humans were running things.)
Any Human Institution would be defunct by now! But Jesus said:”Thou Art Peter, & Upon This Rock, I Will Build My Church! The Gates of Hell Will NOT PREVAIL Against you!” The Biggest Miracle of All!! We are STILL STANDING WITH CHRIST!.

And here is a little bit of the ‘rest of the story’ on all these Catholic priests. I am sure that you will be SHOCKED to learn that as soon as people realized that the Catholic church would settle, and in cowardice not challenge the accusations, some people quickly recognized a modern day lottery that was easy winnings.

When you dumb down and withdraw common sense AND morality from the culture you get stuff like this.

And do note: of all the molestation of minors, the priest scandals, even if all of them had been true (whereas more than half look to be schemes and swindles) it made up of only possibly 1% of molestation.

The other 99% (ongoing) perpetrated by an almost limitless cross section of society, family, social work, education, psychiatry,etc; pretty much has had NO similar surge of outrage to prosecute those preying on the innocent.

A good example is the repeated stories of women teachers who either entice or misguide young students into relationships. While a male teacher might still be sentenced more severely, time and again all we see for these women, who hate the womb but feel entitled to physical pleasure without having to recognize consequences and obligations, is a slap on the wrist or probation – sometimes the teacher not even losing her job.

I return to the matter of male teachers being prosecuted for student molestation.

An interesting offshoot of the feminist tyranny is that women outnumber men in K-12 teaching in a very imbalanced way; so they can be proud of owning much of the scandal of teacher on student molestation..

Of course it’s not a scandal if it’s not a Catholic priest…and it’s also not taken for granted as true if it’s not a Catholic priest. Some measure of being able to see the charges and to defend themselves is available to most everyone but Catholic priests who are, as Father Gordon mentioned, dropped from being able to defend themselves, often out of monetary concern.

No voice is allowed them in any way (but Father has written on this extensively and eloquently in other columns, as have guest columnists)

There is one scandal here on earth, upon which the media and the self-righteous focus.

There is quite another scandal that Heaven views far differently.

We pray for our condemned priests, as well as the often more difficult task of praying for those who accuse them.

For the condemned priests who pray for those who accuse them the task is infinitely more difficult task and yet, it is this incarceration martyrdom that likely is saving countless souls, many of whom will not know until after death that those who they treated so vilely were instrumental in saving them from eternal punishment.

Scratch an unjustly accuse priest who has accepted his cross and you will find a beautiful embodiment of the triumph of those who pursue the guidance of the Beatitudes.

Father Gordon, it is a challenge to sufficiently thank someone who is living out a life that is such a gift of charity to so many.

God bless you richly and may the love that the angels allowed Jesus to feel while he endured His Passion also be available to console you. You are loved by so many and perhaps one of your greatest gifts is to supply us issues that enrage us, while also bringing us the supernatural truth to quiet and transform that rage into something splendidly peaceful. From the belly of the beast you deliver us into an oasis. Incredible.

I supply this from St. Gregory of Nyssa, a mystic who lived in Cappadocia in Asia Minor around 380 AD. He described the Beatitudes this way:

“Beatitude is a possession of all things held to be good,
from which nothing is absent that a good desire may want.
Perhaps the meaning of beatitude may become clearer to us
if it is compared with its opposite.
Now the opposite of beatitude is misery.

Misery means being afflicted unwillingly with painful sufferings.”

Appropriately, I end with something far more beautiful than I’ll ever imagine and write:

THE EIGHT BEATITUDES OF JESUS

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they who mourn,
for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek,
for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they shall be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful,
for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure of heart,
for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they shall be called children of God.

Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Gospel of St. Matthew 5:3-10

The comment from Father Byers is right on target, but there is an even bigger problem with the U.S. bishops and the Dallas Charter. The problem becomes clear in the story of Baptist Preacher Bishop Eddie Long that is linked in this post. He was accused by four young men in his Southern mega-church. There was lots of credible evidence in the accusations but there were no criminal charges. So his huge parish settled the civil claims out of court making no apologies, asserting that there is no admission of guilt, and he went right back to his pulpit. If any of us accuses our physician of malpractice, his insurance company will settle. That’s why doctors pay such extremely high malpractice insurance rates. But they do not lose their license to practice medicine. The quote here from “Sacrificing Priests on the Altar of Insurance” explains this. People accept settlements with no admission of guilt everywhere but in the priesthood and accusers just want their money. They and their lawyers do not care that the priest is ruined in the process. It’s on the bishops who chose to mask their history of bad judgment by eliminating ALL judgment. So any priest so accused, because of real sexual abuse or because of someone’s lust for money, there is no judgment to be made. The man is simply gone and the claim becomes credible because money changed hands. The Dallas Charter is the problem.

Of course, it is not the bishops’ money and it is not their life that’s ruined (their soul may really be ruined for eternity though) and so they can continue living the good life. Certainly the Dallas Charter is the problem but the un-Christian callousness that gave birth to the Charter is a serious problem also. “Ecce homo! Here’s the man, do with him as you please and leave me alone, I’m late for dinner!” And in the process several souls will seal their infernal fate. No big deal. “monsignor” no big deal!

Our Heavenly Father knows the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth! Woe to those who sold out His sons (our priests) for thirty pieces of silver. I hope they really enjoy that money now – because some day – unless they sincerely repent – they will really regret what they did.

Fr. G,
Once more you have “spoken truth to power”. Even before “The Year of Mercy” in which are now involved, I have spoken to some of the same powers (Cardinal O’Mally and Pope Francis) about how priests who are just accused are treated by the Church when the first accusation is leveled. Certainly the axiom “Justice without Mercy is cruelty (St. Thomas Aquinas)” seems to be the operative principle when it comes to allegation of sexual abuse by priests.
Thanks to the shortsightedness of the gathered Bishops in Dallas (2002), who forgot their own words contained in their statement “Responsibility, Rehabilitation and Restoration” (2000), the door was opened for the behaviors of people such as Shamont Lyle Sapp and your own accuser. It is unfortunate that from the moment an accusation is leveled, the Church forgets their responsibility to both Justice AND Mercy.
A biblical principle implies that God’s Judgement is both upon individuals and institutions! The tension that this principle creates will always be troubling. When the allegations of clerical sexual abuse first emerged, I believe, the Church was challenged to show the world the power RECONCILIATION — the harmony of Justice and Mercy. Sadly, individuals and institutions may find themselves before God, lacking!
Please, please readers of TSW, let us all implore the Holy Spirit to bring about the change within the Church and within individuals, so that “The Year of Mercy” may be more than empty words!

Sadly, in our archdiocese, false allegations of priests being removed from parishes due to accusations of child sex abuse have been traced back to the chancery! I know this for a fact because the person who did the tracing is very close to me. What do you do when the administration of your diocese is corrupt, from the top, down? Innocent, holy, orthodox priests have been nearly destroyed by our archbishops & their cohorts.

Indeed, like the bible says, ‘even the elect will be led astray.’ I also know an elderly priest who was falsely accused. Fortunately his young friends went to bat for him and screamed from the rooftops of his innocence. He was not imprisoned, or defrocked but neither was his innocence proclaimed by the archdiocese. He was shunned and not reassigned. Nobody wanted him, they were afraid of guilt by association. He ended up living with his niece. He died shortly after this experience – I think of a broken heart. He was a good man and did not deserve this. The archdiocese quietly paid off the accusers and keep everything quiet. They saids they did not want to stir up scandal. Shame on them. There are a lot of Pharisees and Sadducees in our church today.

What also people need to see is how many of these lawyers then take some of their take on the settlement money and make political contributions with them. Investigate to whom they contribute and you will see the deeper motive for not caring about the truth of false accusations.

Hi Father Gordon!
Father George nailed it! Much needs to be answered for by those that turned their backs on the innocent and ruined many lives in the process. In the next life,what they did and why they did it won’t stand up in His court!
Sending love and prayers that this will be unfolded soon and rightly.Jeannie

I am absolutely disgusted at the lack of intellect and character that the RC bishops show. They only believe criminals and liars..but abandon the clergy they are meant to support and care for.Love and prayers, Father.

I sometimes am reminded that our many corrupt clergy were also schooled in a radicalized and secular minded public education. All those things to which those without faith fall prey also were brainwashed into them.

One of the very few ways that I can pray for those whose actions so anger me (of which sadly there are so many that I had to consecrate myself to Mary, so she could keep track better than I,not forgetting any of them!) is to remember that our children are being handed over as prey to have their minds led into horrendous error.

In other words, all these Archdioceses and Dioceses couldn’t care less about whether or not they are slitting the throats of innocent priests. All that matters is buying hero status for themselves in being “tough on abuse,” ever so happy to pay as much as possible to whoever enables their hero status. Mercy is based on justice, and these chancery rats could not have cared less about justice, so it makes me wonder if there is any mercy waiting for them.

What is worse, the Holy See trusts that the Archbishops and bishops have discovered the truth, knowing full well that that is not the case. It is all one big fraud of self-referential self-congratulations.

There are priests getting smacked down and thrown into the peripheries in this way. The claim is that such crucifixions of Jesus’ priests are justified, that a lack of due process is justified, that lying before men and before God is justified. This is called The Judas Crisis.

Thinking thru the New Testament, it seems the only persons Jesus reprimanded as being hypocrites were the Elders of the Church. Maybe things haven’t changed much. But You know what? … greater than any punishment, more severe than any eye opener is forgiveness and wisdom.

So, Lord, we come asking You to save Your church from “The Judas Crisis” because we need Your anointed, but we need them in Your Holy Spirit of love and fellowship, justice and fairness, NOT in pride and position. Your holy anointed NEED You…free them.. all falsely accused.

Thank You, so much, for Father Gordon, who has, thru Your Own love, shared his and others agony-being accused without cause. His Calvary has spoken volumes to us, the listening, who he is teaching how to continue trusting and loving You while carrying our crosses, knowing that You have NOT abandoned us.

Thank You, so much, Father Gordon. Your martyrdom does count and speaks to our own faith.

God bless and free You……..and thanks to the “other Father “G”, for Your friendship and loyalty to him. You are a treasure.